Smooth Gazpacho + Fried Green Tomato BLT

I’m sorry I’ve been so delinquent updating this blog. Summer has gotten crazy-busy, and my only writing time has been severely curtailed ever since my little one got inconsistent about napping. When he doesn’t nap, I don’t get any writing time, so I can’t blog. It’s definitely cut into my productivity.

I cooked my last challenge a couple of weeks ago, but I’m just now getting around to posting it. It’s still seasonally appropriate, though. The challenge was to make a chilled soup, one I hadn’t tried before. I have to admit that I didn’t go very far out on a limb for this one. I made a blended gazpacho.

Usually, when I make gazpacho, it’s pretty much a salad in a bowl. This time, I was inspired by Thomas Keller‘s recipe for Sun Gold Tomato Gazpacho, from Ad Hoc at Home. This soup is blended until it is silky smooth. It has a wonderful mouthfeel that encourages you to keep eating and eating. My husband also loved it. (Although the Kid, as per usual, turned up his nose.)

This soup uses cherry tomatoes, which should be abundant just about now. I was going to take advantage of some wonderful heirloom cherry tomatoes I spotted in the co-op, but by the time I went back to get them, they were all gone. So instead of using the yellow tomatoes that are called for, I substituted red. It didn’t hurt the soup any, so far as I could tell.

I served this with another great recipe from Sara Foster‘s Southern Kitchen: Fried Green Tomato BLTs. I didn’t have actual green tomatoes yet, so I used red ones from the co-op that were still a bit mealy. They fried up great and the sandwich was tasty, although nothing really beats a basic BLT at the height of tomato season. I encourage you to make your own mayonnaise for your BLTs. I stirred in some chopped basil, which gave it a summery taste. Here is my recipe for fool-proof homemade mayo.

Cherry Tomato Gazpacho

Yields: 6 servings (leftovers keep well in the fridge)

• 1 cup cold water
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed and peeled
• ¼ cup coarsely chopped onion
• 2 lbs. cherry tomatoes, stemmed and halved
• 1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and sliced
• 1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded and cut into large pieces
• 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar, or to taste
• ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
• pinch or two of cayenne pepper, or to taste
• salt, to taste
• ¾ cup good-quality olive oil
• 1 tablespoon minced basil, for garnish

1. Reserve 1 cup of the tomatoes, ½ of the cucumber and ½ of the pepper for garnish. Dice the cucumber and pepper. Refrigerate until serving.

2. In a large bowl, add the water, garlic, onion and remaining tomatoes, cucumber and pepper. Let marinate in their own juices for 5 minutes or so. Transfer to a food processor or blender and blend until completely smooth. Strain to remove any larger bits of tomato peel.

3. Return the mixture to the blender or food processor. Add the vinegar, smoked paprika, cayenne and salt. With the blender or food processor running, slowly pour in the oil, blending until very, very smooth. Taste and add more vinegar or seasonings as desired.

4. The gazpacho can be refrigerated up to 2 days. To serve, garnish with the reserved diced vegetables and minced basil leaves.

Adapted from Ad Hoc at Home, p114.

A New Take on Tuna Salad

My cooking challenge for last week was to prepare a fresh and flavorful fish dish. My husband wanted this dish to reflect the bounty of the season and to be tasty, because he generally thinks fish is bland. (I don’t agree, but that’s another story.) He suggested a flavorful sauce.

The combination of fresh and flavorful got my mind working, and I came up with a salad. But not an ordinary salad. Rather, I wanted a composed dish that would showcase tasty produce surrounding a really nice piece of fish, all dressed with a tasty vinaigrette, which works really well on both fish and vegetables. I hit upon doing a version of a salade Niçoise, but with a twist: no olives (because I don’t really like olives). Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home has a tuna Niçoise recipe that is both gorgeous and easy to make; that would be my template. Leafing through Ad Hoc at Home‘s many vinaigrette recipes, I spotted the one I wanted: bacon vinaigrette! The bacon would taste great on a thick tuna steak and on the vegetables I wanted to accompany it: new potatoes, green beans, cherry tomatoes and avocado.

The vegetable platter.

The best part about this dish is that it is very easy to prepare. The most important step is the shopping, as this dish relies on finding the freshest, tastiest produce and cut of tuna available. It can also adapt to the season. I suggest visiting the farmers market or local co-op and buying whatever looks fresh and beautiful. As for cooking the vegetables, I simply blanched the green beans and steamed the potatoes until they were tender. I then cut everything up and apportioned it on a pretty platter.

As for the tuna, this challenge gave me a chance to explore the best local markets for buying fish. While my regular co-op does a great job of supplying local, organic chicken, bacon and sausage, it doesn’t stock a large selection of fish, and they never have tuna. The grocery store I usually shop at has a fish counter, but I am suspicious of their sources. Their tuna in particular often tastes a little fishy, and it’s a little too red, if you know what I mean.

That meant I had to go further afield. Because I left my shopping so late in the day, I chose to head over to Whole Foods rather than trying out Fresh Market, which is a little farther away. I normally avoid Whole Foods, because the experience of shopping there could easily be the tenth circle of Hell, in my opinion. Starting with the parking lot, which is poorly designed and always jammed with cars fighting for the spaces. Once you’re inside, the food is so gorgeous and artfully laid out, but you have to contend with people jamming the narrow aisles with huge carts and cutting across your path. I feel like a bumper car whenever I go inside. I could stand it just enough to go back to the fish counter and pick out a gigantic, gorgeous tuna steak. I couldn’t even handle ducking over to the bakery for a loaf of bread before my patience snapped. (I do have to give kudos to Whole Foods’ cashiers and fishmongers, who are just as friendly as they can be, unlike their clientele.) The trip was worth it, though, because just take a look at this fish.

The tuna.

Fish this good only requires a little salt and pepper for seasoning and a brief pan-searing in a thin film of olive oil. To judge doneness, watch the edges. You want just a thin sear on both sides. Remove it from the pan and slice thinly for serving. A one-pound steak was plenty for my husband and I, with leftovers. (My toddler refused to partake, of course.)

All that’s left is the dressing, which is also very simple. For two servings, cut 2 slices of bacon into 1-inch pieces. Fry over medium heat until crisp on the outside, then transfer to paper towels to drain, reserving the bacon fat in the pan. Combine 2 tablespoons champagne vinegar, 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard, and ¼ cup olive oil with salt and pepper to taste in a blender. Pour off the bacon fat into this mixture and blend until it is well emulsified. Stir in the bacon pieces and spoon the vinaigrette over the vegetables and fish to serve.

The whole salad.

I feel like this wasn’t too much of a challenge, since it was so easy to prepare. But I think this only goes to show that even the simplest dishes can be the most rewarding, if you take the trouble to find truly excellent ingredients. I would definitely make this salad again and again.

For the next challenge, I am tasked with making an Asian noodle dish. Since I’m still on a light and flavorful kick, I’m thinking Japanese. I hope you’ll join me.

Pickled Red Onions + a Valentine’s Challenge

For topping the sliders I served on Super Bowl Sunday, I made a quick red onion pickle. I used Thomas Keller’s recipe from Ad Hoc at Home, which is super-simple but very good, and I think it’s really all you need to do to end up with a tasty pickle. The recipe says to let the onions pickle at least 24 hours, but you can certainly eat them the same day if you don’t mind them still being somewhat onion-y. Scroll down for the recipe, which makes a lot of pickles! I usually halve it or even quarter it, because we can’t go through that many pickles in a month.

My husband has neglected to provide me with a challenge for this weekend, so I came up with one for myself. I am going to make my husband and son a chocolate cake for Valentine’s Day. This may not sound like much of a challenge, but I have never made a chocolate cake before and I do not have a great track record with baked goods. We’ll see how I do.

Pickled Red Onions

Makes about 4 cups.

2 large red onions (about 1¼ pounds each)

1½ cups red wine vinegar

¾ cup granulated sugar

Cut off the top and bottom of each onion and cut lengthwise in half. Remove and discard the outer layer. Cut a V-shaped wedge from the bottom of each half to remove the roots and the very center pieces of onion. Put the onions cut side down on the cutting board and slice lengthwise into ⅛-inch-thick slices, following the nature lines on the outside of the onion. Pack the onions into a 1-quart canning jar; reserve any slices that don’t fit.

Combine the vinegar and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the onions. Once the onions begin to wilt, add any remaining onion slices to the jar, gently pushing them down into the liquid to submerge them. Let cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate for at least 24 hours, or for up to 1 month.

Crusted Cod with Wilted Spinach and Mashed Potatoes

This week’s challenge was an open-ended fish challenge, i.e., make fish tasty for someone who doesn’t particularly care for it. I have been told I will see more of these challenges as the year progresses. This first time, I decided to play it somewhat safe with a crunchy baked whitefish.

The results? My husband thought this dish had a lot of flavor and that I rescued fish from its major flaw: blandness. He gave it a 7/10, but placed it below the last two dinners, because it was still fish. I devoured my portion; I am a fish eater, and I thought everything on this plate worked particularly well together. My toddler gave it a thumbs down, though, and even went so far as to spit his fish out on the table; he did inhale all the spinach, though, which was definitely a big surprise!

I chose cod fillets for this meal, but any similar whitefish would work. Halibut is another good choice for diners who aren’t wild about fish.

Cod is easy to cook and not too fishy of a fish, so it pleases almost everybody. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a lot of flavor. Although I didn’t want to fry it, I knew that encasing it in a crunchy topping would make the fish much more palatable. But I needed more. I consulted a few cookbooks and finally settled on combining the cooking technique from Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home wild cod recipe with the flavor suggestions from a similar recipe in High Flavor, Low Labor by J.M. Hirsch.

The recipe called for the fish to be slathered with a “secret sauce,” a mixture of ketchup, mayonnaise and mustard. That may sound a little gross — it did to me — but once I tasted it and realized it was a pour man’s approximation of remoulade sauce, I knew I was on to something. I added more flavor to the panko crumb topping: lemon zest, parsley and Parmesan cheese. If you are not familiar with panko bread crumbs, they are traditionally used in Japanese cooking. I chose them because they are light, crunchy and brown well. I recommend that everyone makes them a pantry staple.

Finally, I paired the fish with some favorite sides so nobody went hungry: garlicky wilted spinach and mashed potatoes. I almost always serve mashed potatoes with fish, particularly if there aren’t many fish lovers at the table. Those who find fish too light can fill up on yummy potatoes, and besides, I like to mix the flaked fish in with the creamy goodness. I’ll post my tried-and-true recipe for mashed potatoes tomorrow.

Crusted Cod with Wilted Spinach

Yields: 4 servings

For the fish:

• 1 pound cod fillet or similar whitefish fillet
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Olive oil
• 2 tablespoons mustard
• 2 tablespoons ketchup
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs
• ½ cup Parmesan cheese, grated
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 2 tablespoons parsley, minced
• Lemon wedges to serve

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Cut the cod fillet crosswise into 4-6 even portions. Season with salt and pepper on both sides. Blend together the mustard, ketchup and mayonnaise in a small bowl. Brush this mixture on each side of each fillet. In a shallow dish, combine the bread crumbs, cheese, zest and parsley. Dip each fillet on both sides into the bread crumbs, pressing down to make sure they adhere.

Heat a generous amount of olive oil in an oven-proof pan large enough to hold all of the fillets over medium-high. When the oil is very hot, add the fillets and let brown for 1 minute. Carefully flip them and let brown 1 minute more.

Transfer the pan to the oven to finish cooking the fillets, which can take 10-15 minutes, depending on their thickness. The fillets are done when they are opaque all the way through and flake easily. Serve with lemon wedges on the side.

For the spinach:

• 8 ounces baby spinach
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• Olive oil

While the fish is cooking, wash the spinach and dry it. Heat a small amount of olive oil in a pan over medium with the garlic clove. Add the spinach and toss until it wilts, about 2-3 minutes. Serve alongside the fish.

My Favorite Coleslaw

Here is the coleslaw recipe that goes with yesterday’s barbecued chicken (as well as with burgers, picnics or anywhere else you typically have coleslaw). I have grown less and less fond of an overuse of mayonnaise in my salads. This coleslaw is based on a recipe from Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc at Home, which uses sour cream as the base and just a touch of mayonnaise for richness. I find it much lighter and yummier than mayonnaise-based coleslaws.

This recipe is intended to serve 2-4 people, but I always end up making more coleslaw than we can possibly eat. Here’s one idea for what to do with the leftovers. A night or two later, make chicken tacos, using leftover coleslaw in place of the lettuce. If you have leftover barbecued chicken, that would also go well in tacos, or you can poach or roast a chicken breast for them. Add avocado and shredded white cheddar, and you’ve got a very tasty taco.

By the way, the recipe can be doubled or quadrupled, if you’re making coleslaw for a crowd. The original recipe I modified made 9 cups! Just remember that this recipe makes ¼ cup dressing total (3 parts sour cream to 1 part mayonnaise), so adjust accordingly.

Coleslaw

Yields: 2-4 servings

To make the dressing, combine:

• 3 tablespoons sour cream
• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise
• ½ teaspoon dry mustard
• ½ tablespoon sugar
• ½ teaspoon celery seeds
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Whisk to blend. Refrigerate until ready to use, or store up to 3 days.

For the coleslaw, prepare:

• 1 carrot, peeled and grated
• 1 cup cabbage, sliced (I used green cabbage, but a mixture of green and red is also nice.)
• Fresh lemon juice to taste
• Salt and pepper to taste

To easily slice the cabbage in a food processor, use the slicing disk, rather than the grating disk. Core the cabbage and cut it into wedges. Place the wedges horizontally in the feed tube of the food processor and slice. This produces long, thin strips that seem heartier than finely grated cabbage. (However, it seems to work better to grate the carrot with the grating disk, as the sliced carrot will be too thick.) The vegetables can be grated a day ahead and refrigerated.

When you’re ready to serve, toss the cabbage and carrot together in a large bowl. Add the dressing and toss to coat. Season to taste with lemon juice and salt and pepper.

I feel that it’s okay to add or substitute any other crunchy vegetables I have in my fridge for the carrot. I have used red onion, romaine lettuce, celery and even zucchini successfully.

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How to Make and Use Garlic Confit

Now that I have stopped buying so many packaged foods, I have started looking for creative condiments I can make at home to add flavor to what I’m cooking or just for snacking. A recipe for garlic confit in Ad Hoc at Home caught my eye. Garlic cloves are slowly cooked in oil until they become sweet and mashable. As a bonus, the oil becomes infused with garlic flavor and can be used in marinades, vinaigrettes and mayonnaise or just for sauteing.

I immediately used my garlic in two dishes: as part of a marinade for tuna, blended with parsley, capers, the garlic oil and lemon juice; and mashed into sauteed broccoli florets, which I also cooked in the infused oil. I still had several cloves left over for the week’s cooking. Spread on a baguette, the cloves probably make very good instant garlic bread, although I haven’t tried that yet (but I will!). They keep in the refrigerator, covered in oil, for about 1 week. The oil itself will keep at room temperature for a month.

This recipe was super-simple and so immediately useful that I’m sure Thomas Keller won’t mind if I share it with you.

Garlic Confit

1. Cut the root ends off several garlic cloves and peel off the papery skin.
2. In a small saucepan, pour oil over the garlic to completely submerge the cloves. Ad Hoc at Home calls for canola oil, but I used olive oil.
3. Over medium-low heat, bring the oil to a very slow simmer. Tiny bubbles should just break the surface. Adjust the heat down as necessary.
4. Let the cloves cook, stirring occasionally, until completely tender when pierced by a knife, about 40 minutes.
5. Let the cloves cool in the oil. Store the cloves covered in oil in a jar in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Store the remaining oil at room temperature for up to 1 month.

Las Vegas Restaurant Report: Bouchon, Okada and Nobhill

San Francisco Cioppino from Nobhill in Las Vegas

We were in Las Vegas for 4 nights and we had 3 great dinners, all of them memorable, all of them unique. (The fourth night we saw Mystère, a Cirque du Soleil show that was also pretty memorable, and only grabbed a quick bite afterward.) I have a hard time saying which meal was the best, because they each evoked such a different style of food and eating. But I will say that they were all under $200, with alcohol, which in Las Vegas is no mean feat, let me tell you.

I’ll start with our anniversary dinner at Bouchon. Bouchon, one of Thomas Keller‘s restaurants, is fast becoming one of my favorite restaurants in the world. I love the style: French bistro with a bit of a contemporary twist. The restaurant in the Venetian is open, airy and bright. The waiters, at least at dinner, are chatty and helpful. The ambiance is generally casual, fun and the antithesis of stuffy fine dining.

My husband and I shared everything but dessert. We started with two stellar appetizers. One was a pork belly sausage served with tiny potatoes in a very sweet, reduced vinaigrette. The second was my personal favorite: smoked salmon and fresh salmon rillettes. It came in a little jar topped with a layer of clarified butter, which the waiter had to cut away in a nifty presentation. We then scooped out the rillettes and spread it on croutons. For dinner, we split the steamed mussels in mustard, cream and saffron, with a side of frites and an extra order of macaroni gratin. It was all delicious, and so generous that even two people could not finish.

We also ate breakfast at Bouchon, and let me tell you, if I could eat breakfast there every day for the rest of my life, I gladly would. The waffles I had were practically ethereal, they were so light, but just the fresh baguette with homemade preserves would make a great breakfast any day of the week. I was dying to try the other pastries. Maybe next time.

Nobhill, one of Michael Mina‘s restaurants in the MGM Grand, was a very different experience. The decor there is also beautiful, but much more private, hushed and very relaxed. It’s like eating dinner in your living room, if your living room is very nicely furnished and decorated, and comes with a helpful waiter. The specialty there is the lobster pot pie, but I think I found a true bargain in Las Vegas when I ordered the San Francisco cioppino. Normally, I would think of cioppino as a stew made up of bits of mixed fish and shellfish. What arrived, though, was a beautiful plate of individually cooked seafood: rare tuna, flaky salmon, plump shrimp, mussels and clams. When I removed my crouton, there was a surprise: two perfectly seared scallops. A thick tomato broth was poured over all. (See my husband’s photo above.) It was like getting the best of the restaurant’s seafood offerings on one plate, and so generous I couldn’t finish it, although I gave it my best shot.

Okada is the Wynn’s Japanese restaurant, where we ate our first night. Our rule is that we no longer eat sushi unless we are in a major city where we know the fish is fresh and the chefs are first-rate. In Okada, we sat at the sushi bar (which I recommend — no waiting) and made friends with the chef. We asked him his recommendations and so tried some of the best fish of the night: the yellowtail and the kampachi. We also had delicious halibut, served two ways, and a mackerel roll that the chef made for me, since I told him I wasn’t overly fond of mackerel. But my favorite had to be the snapper, which was dressed only with a little sea salt and lemon juice, and was so good we had to order it again.

So, there you have it. Three nights of dining in the desert on seafood, three wonderful meals. I have to say that eating in Las Vegas is amazing. There are so many choices of great restaurants, and it is absurdly easy to get a reservation or just walk in and get a table. Even if you don’t partake of Vegas’s other vices, it is worth visiting just for the food.

Update: The recipe for the smoked and steamed salmon rillettes is in my Bouchon cookbook! I must try to make this sometime.

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Ad Hoc’s Fried Chicken Kit: Do We Really Need This?

I was kind of sad to see the Ad Hoc Fried Chicken Kit for sale in my latest Williams-Sonoma catalog ($14.95!). I have the Ad Hoc at Home cookbook, and while I haven’t cooked a lot of recipes from it yet, it is a gorgeous cookbook that is very absorbing to leaf through. What I like most about it, though, is Thomas Keller — one of the most renowned chefs cooking today — encouraging home cooks to elevate their game and turn out incredible family meals. The book is supposed to inspire us and teach us how to be better cooks at home. It seems like buying a kit to make Ad Hoc’s signature fried chicken really goes against this philosophy.

I’m not likely to make the fried chicken recipe, as I avoid deep-frying at home. (It’s messy, it’s expensive, it’s not very healthy for everyday eating, and I prefer to get my deep-fried treats on the outside.) But taking a look at the recipe, I see that the brine required has just 9 ingredients, including water, none of them uncommon. The coating requires 7 ingredients: flour, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, cayenne, salt and pepper. How much more basic can you get? So what are you buying this kit for, other than the name on the package?

I realize that we are all American and therefore want to make as much money as we can selling unnecessary things to gullible consumers, but every now and then, I would love to see someone stand by their principles and not sell out. This product has lowered my respect for Keller a notch.

But I am still very much looking forward to eating at Bouchon in Las Vegas this weekend!

Here’s a review of the mix in Serious Eats. (Interestingly, it is the comments and not the review that point out that this product seems like a rip-off.)

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Court Bouillon, Poached Salmon & Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Last night I poached a couple of salmon fillets using Thomas Keller‘s method from Ad Hoc at Home. Well, I didn’t actually use his method, since I don’t have a working thermometer and his method depends entirely on taking the temperature of the poaching liquid and the fish. (I really need to replace my meat thermometer.) I just eyeballed it, and it turned out really good anyway, very moist and perfectly cooked.

The recipe was super-simple. I’m actually surprised by how simple many of the recipes in Ad Hoc at Home are, given Keller’s reputation. It calls for a court bouillon, or a quick broth, as the poaching liquid (I’ve included my version below). Poach the salmon in the court bouillon until it is cooked through, sprinkle it with salt and serve hot or cold (you could serve with a vinaigrette or mayonnaise if you choose to).

Alongside it I serve some brussels sprouts that I had roasted. A recipe really isn’t necessary. I sprinkled the whole sprouts with salt, pepper, olive oil and diced bacon. I roasted them at 425 degrees for about 20 minutes. My husband and I both agreed that the flavor was very strong, and while some may prefer their brussels sprouts that way, we like them better cooked in liquid, when they have a milder taste. So I probably won’t make them that way again.

Tonight I have a crowd coming over for dinner. I have broken out the slow cooker to make a sausage minestrone, so I don’t have to bother too much about dinner at dinnertime. More details tomorrow.

Court Bouillon

This is a quick broth, useful for poaching seafood or vegetables, or as a base for a seafood soup. In a stockpot, combine:

• 2 quarts water
• 2 leeks, trimmed and chopped
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1½ cups onion, chopped
• 10 peppercorns
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 thyme sprig
• 1 garlic clove, peeled and smashed

Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and add:

• 1 cup white wine
• ½ cup white wine vinegar
• 1 halved lemon — squeeze in the juice, then add the lemon halves

Bring to a simmer again. Strain, if desired, and use in the recipe. If used for poaching, strain afterward and refrigerate. The broth can be used one more time.

Thomas Keller’s Brownies

Cover of Ad Hoc at Home

If you received Ad Hoc at Home for Christmas and are wondering what to make first, may I suggest the chocolate brownies? They are easy to make but sinfully delicious. Yes, they call for three sticks of butter, but it is still the holidays! The best touch is chopping a high-quality dark chocolate bar into “chips” to scatter through the batter. When you eat a brownie, it’s like tiny chocolate explosions in your mouth.

The brownies taste best the day they are made or the next day, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Invite your friends over, as these brownies do not keep.

Recipe rating for Brownies from Ad Hoc at Home: A+